The subject matter herein relates generally to a terminal cassette for use with terminal crimping machines for crimping electrical terminals to a wire.
Terminal crimping machines have long been used in the connector industry to effect high-speed mass termination of various cables. It is common practice for the terminal crimping machine to have an interchangeable tooling assembly called an applicator. In general, such terminal crimping machines are referred to as a terminator or press; however other types of terminal crimping machines may similarly be used, such as a lead maker or a bench machine. The applicator is typically mounted to a frame of the terminator. The applicator includes an applicator ram, which is operably coupled to a terminator ram of the terminator. The applicator holds crimp tooling, such as an anvil and a wire crimper, which is attached to the movable applicator ram. During crimping, the terminator ram moves the applicator ram, which moves the wire crimper relative to the anvil during a crimping stroke to crimp a terminal or connector to an end of a wire.
However, these known terminal crimping machines are not without disadvantages. For instance, loading of the terminals into the crimping zone of the application is challenging. For example, the terminals are typically stored on a reel that is separately coupled to the applicator or terminator frame. The terminals may be damaged when setting up the reel on the applicator or terminator frame. The setup time is lengthy. For example, the applicator and the reel are stored separately, transported separately and loaded separately into the terminal crimping machine. Additionally, because the reel of terminals is stored separately from the applicator, it is possible to install the incorrect applicator or incorrect reel into the terminal crimping machine, which may cause damage to the terminals and/or the crimp tooling. Some known systems provide a cart for storing and transporting the reels and the applicators together, however, the terminals and the applicators are exposed and may be damaged during storage, transportation or use. Such carts tend to be bulky and require a large space for storage of many carts.
A need remains for a system that locates the terminal reel relative to the crimp tooling and allows for easy set-up, transportation and storage while protecting the tooling and terminals.